Fans want answers for admission bottleneck at B.C. Place U2 concert
At this point, U2 and Mumford and Sons fans Justin Johnson and Victoria Chan are just looking for someone to “make it right,” following Friday night’s lineup debacle outside B.C. Place Stadium.
The couple from Philadelphia were among thousands of fans in the crowd, primarily for the general-admission entry at Gate E, stuck waiting for up to three hours to get in and missed the performance of Mumford and Sons, which is a headline act in its own right.
“Whether it’s invite people to another show, whether it’s a partial refund for people missing Mumford and Sons, or something,” Johnson said. “I don’t think it’s really fair,” that fans missed out for no fault of their own.
And he was one of dozens of fans who turned to Twitter and Facebook to complain about the lack of signage to direct traffic and question why so few gates were used to get so many people into the stadium (more than 40,000 fans were expected.)
Johnson said he contacted Ticketmaster, which replied that it was “escalating” his case because the company had received many complaints.
No one from B.C. Place returned Postmedia calls Monday, but spokeswoman Laura Ballance did respond with an emailed statement that “we are sincerely sorry for the inconvenience to guests at the event.”
In media interviews over the weekend, Ballance put the blame on the ticketing system used by Ticketmaster for the concert, which calls for guests to scan credit cards used to buy tickets, rather than present physical tickets, and show ID to verify identification.
It’s a system designed to prevent ticket-scalping and Ballance told Global News that stadium staff weren’t able to get through that verification in a timely manner, and said that was compounded by most guests not showing up until 7 p.m., although B.C. Place had sent out warnings to show-up before 5 p.m.
“We don’t have any upcoming events planned using this technology and will not use it until we are confident in the ability to deploy it successfully,” Ballance said in her email to Postmedia News.
Aug. 14 is the next big concert date for B.C. Place, when it’s scheduled to host the heavy-metal, supergroup Metallica for a date on its Worldwired 2017 tour.
However, Johnson said the latter part of the explanation isn’t true because he and Chan were in line before 5:30 p.m. and “the line was out-of-control at 5:30 p.m., before the doors even opened,” and it was still just before 9 p.m. when the couple got in, but long after Mumford and Sons had finished their set.
“I talked to security guards (asking), ‘What do we do here, this is what I paid for?’ ” Johnson said. “And they were shrugging their shoulders.”
And Johnson was one of a few fans who contacted Postmedia and reported that security staff had dispensed with detailed screening “endangering everybody,” by the time they got to the gate.
In an email to Postmedia, Matt Musslewhite said he and his wife Cathy travelled to Vancouver from Edmonton for the weekend on a flight packed with U2 fans. They arrived at B.C. Place at 5 p.m., heeding warnings to show up early, but didn’t get to the head of the line until 8:15 p.m. and wound up missing all but two songs by Mumford and Sons.
Musslewhite said he and Cathy wound-up leaving U2’s performance early because, suffering from Stage 4 breast cancer, she was exhausted from standing in line for so long.
Johnson said he and Chan also had tickets for Sunday night’s U2/ Mumford and Sons show at Century Link field in Seattle, which went smoothly by comparison. There, Johnson said there were a lot more security staff, including senior staff from LiveNation, promoters of the event.
“Put it this way, they were lucky it was a U2 concert,” said Vancouver U2 concertgoer Shawn Bishop, and not a heavy-metal band that might have had a rowdier and less-patient audience.
“It was a buzz-kill. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”